Published: Sunday, December 2, 2012 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, November 29, 2012 at 8:44 p.m.

Visitors to Hendersonville’s Holiday Tour of Historic Inns and Cookie Caper on Dec. 9 can see a bed and breakfast that’s home to more than 200 nutcrackers and a Kanuga Road estate appearing on the tour for the first time.

And everyone can get a taste of the seasonal opulence inside the six inns by watching “North Carolina Weekend” on UNC-TV at 9 p.m. Thursday and 8:30 p.m. Friday, when the broadcast will feature the Hendersonville Holiday Tour.

This year’s adventure features Aunt Adeline’s Bed & Breakfast, a former boarding house at 1314 Hyman Ave.; Inn on Church at 201 W. Third Ave., the last surviving example of the many hotels that once thrived downtown; Claddagh Inn, built in 1897 at 755 N. Main St.; the 1898 Waverly Inn at 783 N. Main St.; the Elizabeth Leigh Inn, a Colonial Revival 1893 home at 908 W. Fifth Ave.; and Pinebrook Manor Inn, one of the oldest historic estates in Hendersonville at 2701 Kanuga Road.

Aunt Adeline’s Bed & Breakfast features more than 200 nutcrackers ranging in size from 2 inches to 6 feet tall, collected and rehabilitated from different parts of the world. Heinrich and Herwig — giants among the collection at Aunt Adeline’s — guard the front entrance.

“This is the nutcracker house,” says Sue Hathaway, who runs the inn with her husband, Gerald Mitchell. Nutcrackers pull the sleigh here instead of reindeer. The theme will even be reflected in about 450 nutcracker butter cookies Hathaway says she plans to bake, frost and hand out in the tour’s cookie caper.

“They’re expecting over 400 (tourists) this year,” she adds.

Guests of Aunt Adeline’s, a former boarding house named Bonnie Haven, will be treated to spiced cider, coffee and a special tour of each room. A large fir tree, decked with ornaments, grows to the ceiling of the couple’s sunny dining room.

“People come and take their family’s photo in front of the tree and send it out as Christmas cards,” Hathaway says.

They joined the tour in 2008, less than a year after purchasing the Hyman Avenue property which had last housed a retirement home. Aunt Adeline’s Bed & Breakfast officially opened to guests in the fall of 2009.

Hathaway says she named the inn after her great aunt, who lived in Hendersonville before her death. Her two tallest nutcrackers, Heinrich and Herwig, bear the names of her great-grandmother.

Hathaway, who retired as a major in the U.S. Air Force in 1998, picked up her first nutcracker when she was stationed in Germany in the ’80s. What began as a set of six miniature tree ornaments has grown to a passion and appreciation for the wooden soldiers.

“We get damaged ones and we fix them up,” Hathaway says, pointing to the couple’s nutcracker hospital upstairs. That’s where the magic happens, where unfortunate toys find the fortune of new arms, heads, feet and nut-crunching-capable mouths.

“We like the soldier look,” Mitchell says, “although I will vary off that theme. I’ve got one for the Cornhuskers, my football team in Nebraska, and I have a golfer in my office.”

Guests have come from as far as Baghdad to stay at Aunt Adeline’s and have a bowl of Hathaway’s cheesy grits, inspired by the cook who first fixed them for her — her aunt.

Mitchell says that they have seen more guests this year than last year, a hopeful sign the economy is on the uptick.

Pinebrook Manor Inn

Melanie and Graham MacPherson say they have also seen a rise in their guests at Pinebrook Manor Inn, where they have hosted visitors from as far away as Russia. Last month, they hosted a crew filming the cast of a reality show pilot called “Road to Love.”

“They used Pinebrook for everything. The girls stayed here. They filmed here. They had their control room here down in our basement next door. For 10 days, we had these people who literally just took over our property,” Melanie MacPherson says.

“It was a great experience,” she adds, holding onto a “Road to Love: Hendersonville” photograph the crew left for her as a keepsake.

Melanie MacPherson is grateful for the attention.

“Because we are three miles out from downtown, we have never been asked to be in the historic tours before, and so this year we’re very honored that they invited us to participate,” she says. “This is our way of telling the locals we’re here.”

She says that they start decorating for Christmas on the first of November. “It takes me weeks to get it done,” she says.

The MacPhersons do all of their own decorating, holding fast to a Victorian theme.

“I’ve been collecting ornaments for 41 years,” she says. “I love things that are very ornate.”

Garlands tied with golden ribbon and a fairy dusting of silver glitter here and there dress up golden cherubs on the mantel of the inn’s ballroom.

“Most people know this house as the Pardee Estate,” Melanie MacPherson says. The Pardees, for which the hospital was named, bought the house in 1945, she adds. “We’ve been able to trace the house back to 1910, and that’s only from deeds that I have seen.”

“We know the house goes back to the late 1700s because Flat Rock Historical Society told us that our foundation is that old,” she says.

Melanie MacPherson bought the property in 2003. “It was a total rehab,” she says. “It took seven months to do the restoration.”

She put in new bathrooms with Jacuzzi tubs, central heat and air, a commercial hot water system and wi-fi. A lot of the furnishings hail from England, where she lived for five years, and from a bed and breakfast she ran for five years in California.

The inn’s master bedroom features a fireplace and a hot tub for two. A guest book in the room is signed by guests who share their stories of romance.

MacPherson says the inn is all about romance. Two king rooms and two queen rooms are named after British romantic poets, Lord Tennyson, Lord Byron, Barrett Browning and Wordsworth. Each room features collected works of the author.

The Lake District, she says, “used to be one of my favorite places to go in England. … This whole area kind of reminds me of that, and, of course, all of those poets were from up in that area.”

On the inn’s five acres, the MacPhersons grow a rose garden that has been the site of several weddings.

“We wanted a space where we could do weddings. That’s why we took the project on,” she says. “It was like the house called to me.”

Pinebrook Manor Inn opened n May 2004.

“It had never been a bed and breakfast before,” she says. “This whole B&B thing is about really taking care of a family, and it’s exactly how it was in my home with my children growing up. … I was a homemaker and the difference now is that I do get appreciated for it,” she says, laughing. “And that’s why we do it, because we like to make people happy. It makes us feel good.”

Graham MacPherson, a retired architect, jokes that in his retirement “he’s worked harder than he ever has in his life, being an innkeeper,” Melanie MacPherson says.

<p>Visitors to Hendersonville's Holiday Tour of Historic Inns and Cookie Caper on Dec. 9 can see a bed and breakfast that's home to more than 200 nutcrackers and a Kanuga Road estate appearing on the tour for the first time.</p><p>And everyone can get a taste of the seasonal opulence inside the six inns by watching “North Carolina Weekend” on UNC-TV at 9 p.m. Thursday and 8:30 p.m. Friday, when the broadcast will feature the Hendersonville Holiday Tour.</p><p>This year's adventure features Aunt Adeline's Bed & Breakfast, a former boarding house at 1314 Hyman Ave.; Inn on Church at 201 W. Third Ave., the last surviving example of the many hotels that once thrived downtown; Claddagh Inn, built in 1897 at 755 N. Main St.; the 1898 Waverly Inn at 783 N. Main St.; the Elizabeth Leigh Inn, a Colonial Revival 1893 home at 908 W. Fifth Ave.; and Pinebrook Manor Inn, one of the oldest historic estates in Hendersonville at 2701 Kanuga Road.</p><p>Aunt Adeline's Bed & Breakfast features more than 200 nutcrackers ranging in size from 2 inches to 6 feet tall, collected and rehabilitated from different parts of the world. Heinrich and Herwig — giants among the collection at Aunt Adeline's — guard the front entrance.</p><p>“This is the nutcracker house,” says Sue Hathaway, who runs the inn with her husband, Gerald Mitchell. Nutcrackers pull the sleigh here instead of reindeer. The theme will even be reflected in about 450 nutcracker butter cookies Hathaway says she plans to bake, frost and hand out in the tour's cookie caper.</p><p>“They're expecting over 400 (tourists) this year,” she adds.</p><p>Guests of Aunt Adeline's, a former boarding house named Bonnie Haven, will be treated to spiced cider, coffee and a special tour of each room. A large fir tree, decked with ornaments, grows to the ceiling of the couple's sunny dining room.</p><p>“People come and take their family's photo in front of the tree and send it out as Christmas cards,” Hathaway says.</p><p>They joined the tour in 2008, less than a year after purchasing the Hyman Avenue property which had last housed a retirement home. Aunt Adeline's Bed & Breakfast officially opened to guests in the fall of 2009.</p><p>Hathaway says she named the inn after her great aunt, who lived in Hendersonville before her death. Her two tallest nutcrackers, Heinrich and Herwig, bear the names of her great-grandmother.</p><p>Hathaway, who retired as a major in the U.S. Air Force in 1998, picked up her first nutcracker when she was stationed in Germany in the '80s. What began as a set of six miniature tree ornaments has grown to a passion and appreciation for the wooden soldiers.</p><p>“We get damaged ones and we fix them up,” Hathaway says, pointing to the couple's nutcracker hospital upstairs. That's where the magic happens, where unfortunate toys find the fortune of new arms, heads, feet and nut-crunching-capable mouths.</p><p>“We like the soldier look,” Mitchell says, “although I will vary off that theme. I've got one for the Cornhuskers, my football team in Nebraska, and I have a golfer in my office.”</p><p>Guests have come from as far as Baghdad to stay at Aunt Adeline's and have a bowl of Hathaway's cheesy grits, inspired by the cook who first fixed them for her — her aunt.</p><p>Mitchell says that they have seen more guests this year than last year, a hopeful sign the economy is on the uptick.</p><h3>Pinebrook Manor Inn</h3>
<p>Melanie and Graham MacPherson say they have also seen a rise in their guests at Pinebrook Manor Inn, where they have hosted visitors from as far away as Russia. Last month, they hosted a crew filming the cast of a reality show pilot called “Road to Love.”</p><p>“They used Pinebrook for everything. The girls stayed here. They filmed here. They had their control room here down in our basement next door. For 10 days, we had these people who literally just took over our property,” Melanie MacPherson says.</p><p>“It was a great experience,” she adds, holding onto a “Road to Love: Hendersonville” photograph the crew left for her as a keepsake.</p><p>Melanie MacPherson is grateful for the attention.</p><p>“Because we are three miles out from downtown, we have never been asked to be in the historic tours before, and so this year we're very honored that they invited us to participate,” she says. “This is our way of telling the locals we're here.”</p><p>She says that they start decorating for Christmas on the first of November. “It takes me weeks to get it done,” she says.</p><p>The MacPhersons do all of their own decorating, holding fast to a Victorian theme.</p><p>“I've been collecting ornaments for 41 years,” she says. “I love things that are very ornate.”</p><p>Garlands tied with golden ribbon and a fairy dusting of silver glitter here and there dress up golden cherubs on the mantel of the inn's ballroom.</p><p>“Most people know this house as the Pardee Estate,” Melanie MacPherson says. The Pardees, for which the hospital was named, bought the house in 1945, she adds. “We've been able to trace the house back to 1910, and that's only from deeds that I have seen.”</p><p>“We know the house goes back to the late 1700s because Flat Rock Historical Society told us that our foundation is that old,” she says.</p><p>Melanie MacPherson bought the property in 2003. “It was a total rehab,” she says. “It took seven months to do the restoration.”</p><p>She put in new bathrooms with Jacuzzi tubs, central heat and air, a commercial hot water system and wi-fi. A lot of the furnishings hail from England, where she lived for five years, and from a bed and breakfast she ran for five years in California.</p><p>The inn's master bedroom features a fireplace and a hot tub for two. A guest book in the room is signed by guests who share their stories of romance.</p><p>MacPherson says the inn is all about romance. Two king rooms and two queen rooms are named after British romantic poets, Lord Tennyson, Lord Byron, Barrett Browning and Wordsworth. Each room features collected works of the author.</p><p>The Lake District, she says, “used to be one of my favorite places to go in England. … This whole area kind of reminds me of that, and, of course, all of those poets were from up in that area.”</p><p>On the inn's five acres, the MacPhersons grow a rose garden that has been the site of several weddings.</p><p>“We wanted a space where we could do weddings. That's why we took the project on,” she says. “It was like the house called to me.”</p><p>Pinebrook Manor Inn opened n May 2004.</p><p>“It had never been a bed and breakfast before,” she says. “This whole B&B thing is about really taking care of a family, and it's exactly how it was in my home with my children growing up. … I was a homemaker and the difference now is that I do get appreciated for it,” she says, laughing. “And that's why we do it, because we like to make people happy. It makes us feel good.”</p><p>Graham MacPherson, a retired architect, jokes that in his retirement “he's worked harder than he ever has in his life, being an innkeeper,” Melanie MacPherson says.</p>